2013 Marketing Buzzwords

The folks at Mashable have put together this infographic on 30 days of Marketing Buzzwords. As a guy who can’t stand marketing speak, I always appreciate when we take a good look at marketing BS. I’ll be honest, though, and admit that I think this infographic just may be full of it.

Terms like agile marketing, infographic and gamification aren’t marketing buzzwords, they’re actual terms that every marketer needs to fully understand. And my biggest problem is with the term Return on Investment being listed as a buzzword. ROI isn’t a buzzword… it’s an absolute necessity. We continue to see agencies and businesses that aren’t monitoring their return on investment fail. And when their ROI fails, it kills their business – not just their marketing.

Some of the other terms are buzzworthy, but still not that bad. I like the term snackable content… we often refer to minigraphics – infographics that are very focused on a single piece of data rather than the entire story. Snackable content sounds a bit better and points to the behavior of how they are consumed. Value propositions and KPIs may also be buzzwords but are important as marketers are focusing their message and measuring the results.